Between 2011 and 2012, the Nashville metro area experienced
job growth of 3.9 percent, more than any other metro area with a
population of more than one million. Nashville's music industry —
the second largest in the country after New York -- employs
thousands, but that's not what's powering the boom. Rather, it's
the city's flourishing health care sector, and a wave of
companies that have packed up their headquarters and moved to the
Tennessee capital.

Businesses in an array of other industries have also made
the southern migration. Citing the lower cost of doing
business, Nissan Motor Co. moved its North
American headquarters, and 1,300 jobs, from California to a
Nashville suburb in 2006. Tennessee has no state income tax,
cheap real estate and low living costs, and to seal the deals,
Nashville has been exceptionally generous with the tax breaks and
credits it offers companies considering a move.

The business process outsourcing firm IQT Inc. announced it
was relocating from New York City to Nashville in 2011, tempted
by perks like a grant to offset start up costs, and an additional
grant for each job created, reported Area Development Online. The
company's co-CEO Alex Mortman also said the city, which is home
to dozens of colleges and universities, including Tennessee State
University and Vanderbilt University, had the "smart, educated,
technology savvy people" they were looking to hire.

Nashville's
culture also a major draw

"The food scene here, the entertainment scene, the people
seem friendly, the employee base seems to be welcoming," Hazem
Ouf, president of national restaurant chain American Blue Ribbon
Holdings, told WKRN-TV about the company's
decision to relocate last year. "Certainly you can feel the
southern hospitality here."

While Tennessee's unemployment rate is stuck above the
national average, Nashville's is more than a
whole percentage point below. It seems almost every
day a major company is changing its tune about where to be
headquartered, and that tune is increasingly played on a
fiddle.